


Homeward Bound

by Severina



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: getyourwordsout, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-11 22:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7073941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six missed calls. Matt flipped through the list as he speed-walked toward the terminal, and saw with no surprise that five of them were from John. The sixth was from Lucy, no doubt telling him to call her father before he had a stroke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homeward Bound

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's getyourwordsout bingo for this photo prompt:
> 
> [ ](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Severina2001/media/gywo%20bingo/04%20subway_zpsdvlwtopd.jpg.html)

Six missed calls. Matt flipped through the list as he speed-walked toward the terminal, and saw with no surprise that five of them were from John. The sixth was from Lucy, no doubt telling him to call her father before he had a stroke.

He didn't bother to play them back, just thumbed the speed dial as he took the stairs two at a time and spun through the turnstile.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" McClane answered. "You know what time it is? There's a rotating blackout scheduled in—"

"I know, I'm sorry," Matt interrupted quickly. He switched the phone to his left ear so he could adjust his messenger bag on his shoulder; scanned the mostly empty platform. "I lost track of the time," he continued. "I totally got caught in Llanowar Territory behind a wagon train of mystics on a pilgrimage, and one thing led to another, and I somehow ended up in a cave with a couple of lost druids. By the time I was able to extricate myself from _that_ sticky situation and get the hell out before the elves showed up to kick my ass, it was after midnight. So. Yeah. I'm at the station now. My train gets here in two minutes."

The long silence was punctuated only by the faint rumble of a train coming in on the other side of the station. Then he heard John sigh. "Why can't you just play Yahtzee like normal people?"

Matt grinned. "Or you could join my guild," he answered. "We'll start you off as a Level 5 Fighter, pick you up a longsword—"

"Think I get enough of that in my daily life, kid."

"You fight with a longsword?" Matt teased. "Wow, the NYPD's really amping up the weapons classes. Are they training you with pikes now, too? You know, I can get them a really great discount on chain mail. I know this guy who--"

"Putting on my coat now," John said, ignoring him completely. "Meet you at the platform in twenty."

"What? No," Matt said. He stole a quick glance at his watch, winced at the time. He knew how John got when the grid went down for repairs, because no matter how much the commissioner went on about "increased police presence" there was still looting and general mayhem every damn night, because people in general were dicks. But it wasn't like Matt was helpless. Geez, he could bench press a good forty pounds now. "Just heat me up some leftover lasagna before we lose power, okay? I'll be strolling through the front door in half an hour. I've got plans for you, McClane, and I'm going to need my energy."

John snorted – not exactly the response Matt was hoping for. "I'll meet you at the platform."

John disconnected before Matt could do more than open his mouth. He shut it when the train wheezed in, still shaking his head as he slumped into a seat. 

A quick look around showed him the subway car was empty. No surprise there – in the three months of rolling blackouts to repair the damage that Gabriel had caused, most people knew the routine by now and were home tucked in their beds long before the lights went out. Matt had run a quick analysis program in the six weeks immediately following the aborted Fire Sale, when he was officially still banned from working until Bowman squeaked the wheels and got him cleared of all charges. Factoring in the estimated hours of downtime each night (no big screen TVs, cold drinks in the pub, or internet to keep people otherwise occupied) and cross-referencing with the population of the state aged forty-five and under, the program estimated that there would be a twenty-three percent increase in births in the summer of 2008. When he factored in the upsurge in condom sales the percentage dropped to seventeen percent. 

Thankfully, he didn't have to worry about that. Lucy on the other hand… well, what John didn't know about Jim and Lucy didn't hurt him. 

He was absorbed in a quick game of Candy Crush when the doors swished open a few stops later. First mistake. The second was not looking up when he heard the clunk of heavy boots on the dirty metal floor. The third? Not being quick enough when the hand the size of a thanksgiving ham plucked the cell phone out of his grasp.

"Nice phone," something growled.

Matt looked up – and up – into the fur-covered face of some kind of troglodyte wearing dirty jeans and a battered army jacket. Who had his giant fumbling meat-hands on _his phone_. 

"Oh hey," he said, jumping to his feet, "that's… okay, that's a prototype, so you don't want… can you just not… DON'T PUSH THAT!"

The troglodyte nudged the slightly smaller Neanderthal at his side. "What'd'say, Ernie? Before and after shot?"

Matt blinked when the flash went off, and made a flailing grab for his phone. The smaller caveman pushed him back easily, and he blinked to try to get the spots out of his vision. "Before and after what?" he blurted out.

The two men exchanged a look. "Before and after we kick your ass, dickweed."

"Okay, that's not even—"

"Hey, good shot," the little one – if one could classify a six foot two, two hundred and forty pound subhuman named Ernie as 'little' – said as he gazed down at the phone. "Really captured the look of panic in his eyes."

"Better than my piece of shit," the big one agreed. He cocked his head, digging his own phone out of the ripped pocket of his camo to compare. "What'd'ya call this, a prototype?"

"It's a Tsurugi, it's still in beta testi… look it's not even on the market… if you could just be very gentle with… HEY," Matt said, his eyes lighting on the other cell cramped in Big Guy's oversized mitt. "That's a Komeda, that's a good phone! You shouldn't be having any problems with your camera." He held out a hand tentatively. "Can I--?"

The troglodyte raised a brow, and Ernie shrugged. "Might as well, Marco. What's he gonna do, use it to call his mama?" 

"My mother passed away three years ago," Matt lied smoothly.

To his surprise, Ernie's face dropped and Marco made a quick sign of the cross. "Condolences, dude," he said as he handed over the Komeda.

It had been on Matt's mind to try a quick 9-1-1 call and pray that it got through before he was diced into tiny pieces, but he reconsidered at the awkward yet sincere signum crucis. A lightbulb went on – something he'd read about when he was researching kidnap victims, which he'd done fanatically in that first week in the hospital after he'd been a kidnapping victim himself. John, orating from his bed on the other side of the room, had said it was weird and obsessive. Which of course it was, but he'd have to tell him later that it came in handy. If he made it through this unscathed.

"Thanks, man," he said. "She raised me herself, worked three jobs when I was little. She was never so proud as when I got that scholarship into college." 

Humanizing the victim, it was called. Remind the bad guys that it's a real person they're terrorizing, not just a background character called The Nerd or The Skinny Guy. Even if the skinny guy _could_ now bench press a 40 with only minimal spaghetti arms afterward.

He bit his lip as he scanned through menus on the phone, flipped quickly through files and got into the bones of the coding; flicked his gaze up through his bangs to gauge the reaction from Marco and Ernie. Both men were watching his fingers fly through the keys, their expressions rapt. 

"Only wish she'd lived to see me graduate, you know," he said softly. The wince at that wasn't entirely faked. His mother, currently teaching Economics at Brown, hadn't even bothered to attend his high school graduation. If memory served, she was on holiday with Husband Number Three at the time. 

"Sucks," Ernie agreed. 

Matt bit back the remainder of the story – he was going to lose his audience if he laid it on too thick, even though the bit about the car accident sounded particularly heart wrenching in his head – and instead shook his head as though chasing away the bad memories and pointed at the screen. "Here's your problem," he announced. 

Two bull-sized heads leaned down toward his, blocking out much of the light. "See, somehow the internal settings got rerouted into the fractal column?" he bullshitted gleefully. "And that caused the algorithmic field to distort into… well, never mind. A lot of technical mumbo-jumbo. I can just---" he quickly adjusted the simple setting, handed the phone back. "Try it now." 

Matt took a step back, crossed his arms and smiled for the camera. Confidence. Poise. Absolute certainty that when Marco finished taking his photo he wasn't then going to set the cell phone aside and commence removing his spleen without benefit of anesthesia. 

That part didn't come from reading articles on a notebook borrowed from John's daughter. That came from watching John himself and only realizing later, lying in a hospital bed with his leg in a cast, that most of the time on that wild ride on the Fourth John had absolutely no fucking idea what he was doing. He just made it up on the fly and made it sound like it would work, and everybody bought it. 

This time Matt didn't blink when the flash went off, and stepped over eagerly to look at the screen over Marco's elephantine arm. His own grinning face greeted him, though the sheen of sweat on his brow and the slightly sickly smile might have given away just a _little_ of his… oh, he might as well call it what it was. Sheer, unadulterated terror.

"Hey," Ernie said wonderingly. "Ya fixed it."

The gruff slap on his shoulder from Marco nearly knocked him over, but Matt did his best to look nonplussed. He _did_ nearly lose his footing when the train took a sharp bend, and blinked up in surprise when he saw where they were. "So," he said as the subway car began to slow. "This is my stop."

He watched Marco and Ernie exchange a quick glance, then Marco shrugged. "Have a good night, genius."

Matt let out an explosion of breath and darted toward the doors. Which didn't open. And didn't open. He was fully expecting a monster sized paw to drop down on his neck and drag him kicking and screaming back into the car, and then the doors begrudgingly began to slide open. And John was on the platform, scowling at him. And a chorus of angels began to sing.

He nearly tripped over his feet getting to John's side. "You have never looked so good," he breathed out.

"Hey! Genius!"

Matt looked up quickly, just in time to flail out a hand and catch the flying Tsurugi before the doors closed on Marco's bushy grin. Ernie plastered himself against the safety glass as the car pulled out, eyes wild, tongue out, and fingers raised in devils horns. Of course.

"Ya wanna tell me," John said from behind him, "why you're hanging out with two of the most notorious members of the Crimson Hogs?"

"The…" Matt turned slowly, his mouth dry. "The Crimson Hogs?"

John raised a brow. 

Matt swallowed. The Hogs had been in the news a lot lately. In fact, The Hogs were one of the main reasons why John paced and muttered under his breath until he knew that both Matt and Lucy were home safe during the blackouts. "Uh," he said. He wiped a suddenly damp palm on his jeans. "I fixed their cell phone."

"You fixed—" John shook his head, slung an arm around his shoulder. "From now on, I'm pickin' ya up after these stupid game nights."

Matt would point out that D&D has been around for decades and is definitely not 'stupid'. He'd also remind John that he can take care of himself, as he just very ably proved. But John's arm was warm and snug, and he can feel the gun secure in its holster, too. And those were the fucking _Crimson Hogs_. So. 

"No argument here," he said.

His stomach rumbled as they made their way up the steps and into the deep black of the night. Apparently defeating infamous gang members was hungry work. 

Matt had a flash of what could have happened on that subway car, and then another that was infinitely more soothing – darkness pressing on the windows of John's little house, the scent of basil and garlic still drifting from the kitchen, John warm and somnolent after the meal. Slow touches in the candlelight. His footsteps slowed. Yeah, he could picture doing that. Maybe forever. 

And they didn't have to worry about any repercussions nine months later, either. He said a quick and silent prayer for Lucy and Jim, and then hurried to catch up to John at the door of the car.

"Hey," he asked, "did you remember to heat up that lasagna?"


End file.
